Unarmed Combat

As far as I know, the only way to up your unarmed combat damage is through a unique set of gloves, which greatly limits players that wish to go down that path. I think a group of skill nodes, situated between the Marauder and Duelist trees, that focus on increasing unarmed damage, would be great.

Each "small" node could increase unarmed damage by something around 2-4%, and the "big" node could increase it by around 10%. There could even be a Keystone called "Pugilist" that increase damage by a large amount while unarmed, but decreases damage with weapons.

I really think that this would be something that players would appreciate and play with.

As far as I know, the only way to up your unarmed combat damage is through a unique set of gloves, which greatly limits players that wish to go down that path. I think a group of skill nodes, situated between the Marauder and Duelist trees, that focus on increasing unarmed damage, would be great.

Each "small" node could increase unarmed damage by something around 2-4%, and the "big" node could increase it by around 10%. There could even be a Keystone called "Pugilist" that increase damage by a large amount while unarmed, but decreases damage with weapons.

I really think that this would be something that players would appreciate and play with.

Sorry if this has already been talked about.

A weapon has to be equipped realistically. That's a lot of socket slots to lose which would ultimately make you essentially only 50% of what someone using a weapon can do. As for the unique gloves, I believe they cap at 1000% unarmed damage (i've seen them linked with 988%), which I believe is more of a joke then anything. Kind of "Funny gear."

If you want to really play Manmode in HC, you roll with the Facebreakers and a Shield/Quiver (preferably a shield to make up for lost sockets).

What I would like to see is Shield Charge changed to not require a melee weapon but (obviously) a shield, I mean it is all about the shield, not the melee weapon. I know the damage of it is based off of your melee weapon, but that could be simply changed and treated as a spell with physical damage instead. Without Shield Charge an Unarmed character really has no distance/gap closers as they all require a weapon of sorts.

I have been told that they are going to be including upwards of ~50 new skill gems. I would just like to see this manly play-style get some love.